Posted on 12/05/2010 10:28:56 PM PST by djf
another FReeper posed a question on another thread today. The question was one I too have though long about. His question was similar to this, if there is a complete breakdown of society as we know it, where would our military stand, with the people or the leaders? This may not have been his actual question, I would have to go back and find it. I can if any are interested.
i need to find an ATM wired for touch-tone on dial-up
though should read thought. It must be late, or I cannot type or spell.
I think you’re spot-on. Things are going to get very dangerous, indeed. Ted Turner is now, openly, talking about a global one-child policy...you can’t make this stuff up! Have you been seen www.daily-ops.com ?
It seems that, as the days progress, things get stranger and stranger; yet, everyone seems to be stuck-on-jersey shore (I mean stupid)
and guess what folks this is where the ‘bam steps in and deputizes by decree the marshalling of his Civilian National Security Force(s) and if you give lip you’ll be taken down to the Fusion Center ...
However, I think most of the inner cities will devolve pretty much the way NOLA did only over a longer period; maybe a couple of weeks, a month before it really gets bad.
For days before the storm struck they begged people to go and get supplies and store water. You won’t believe the numbers of morons who think it is to much work to fill some bottles or buy some . You won’t believe the numbers of morons who think city water never stops flowing.
Major cities have about 3 days worth of food in their stores/warehouses . A lot of their residents have even less stored in their houses thinking the restaurants never close.
There is no way any one could pay me enough to live in a large city ever again.
TARGET RICH ENVIRONMENT
I guess that would be as Janet Incompatano put it: Non-Islamic Domestic Terrorists
btw, martial law isn’t really that scary of a deal -people just have to stay off the streets after darkunless it’s deemed by posPOTUS daytime hours, but the production of Civilian National Security Force created by Obama could pose a multitude of problems.
You make some good points. Though at times I do think anti-depressants are needed in severe clinical or episodal depression. You reminded me I need to get some vit D supplements. I didn’t even know it’s related to insomnia, but I’ve had that for years and don’t get much sun so could be something to that!
Name one urban city in America that isn't in some fashion or another?
Now, imagine something larger. Where the entire grid is out. When cops have gone into triage mode, only responding to truly exceptional incidents (and soon after that not even to such, because police officers are human too and have families to fend for and protect). American safety is an illusion ...the reason there are not as many fences as in other parts of the world is because security is always available (quickly available in most places in the US) at the touch of a button or a call from a phone. However, that is passive security that requires a working functioning system that is humming along at acceptable (and taken for granted) levels of efficiency and efficacy.
However, as a passive security system, it is largely illusory. It requires a functioning system, without which one is as a lamb unto the leopard.
So, some adverse event occurs. No electricity. Supermarkets are dry (all stock finished) within hours, and because in the US everything is just-in-time a breakdown in the road delivery system means that JIT is DOA. Gas may run out any moment, so people rush to fill their cars. A spike in opportunistic crime occurs.
Day 1 just ended.
Day 2: People who require medicines start panicking on whether they can get them, and hospitals are already over-saturated and worried because their generators will be running out of gas anytime. They go into triage mode. The police have started getting overburdened, and soon start responding only to crucial emergencies. Opportunistic crime rises up to a whole new level, and it starts to get 'organized' in the form of mobs looting shops (for booze and technological products, since all the food was gone on day 1). Day 2 ends. (By the way, I will not even touch on the spectre of disease. Things like dysentry can quickly pop up. Don't let me get started on Cholera. For most Americans, when one says disease they think of 'diseases for the aged.' There are some real nasties that have been kept at bay due to modern medicine and an effective/efficient system. Wonder what happens when that breaks down. No running water, and improper sanitation, would quickly re-introduce some 'interesting' pathogens to people whose immune systems never had to deal with them. Wonder why visitors to Mexico or India get things like 'Delhi Belly' and the locals are alright? That would be a lesson that would be quickly brought to the fore)
Now, we start going into interesting territory! Most Americans have been used to a working machine ....and they expected this situation to be over by the second day at the most. It is dawn of the third day, and no help seems to be coming. Now, 'normal people' (there is no such thing btw ...even on FR, there is no such thing as normal people - everyone can be a beast) start to worry. They were on their backfoot on day 1 and 2, but held to some hope that Government (or someone) would make things right again. Nothing is happening. This is when you start to see a real paradigm shift - where the threat starts to (slowly) shift from criminals and opportunists, to the 'nice' neighbors next door! This is what most people (including FReepers) do not get ...the threat is not the 'inner city' folk (or as FR likes to call them, 'those Amish' in an infantile grab at atrophied humor) but rather one's neighbors. There is little a man will not do to feed his hungry children, particularly if they think you have some food you can share. There is little a mother will not do to get some medicine for her kids, particularly if she thinks you may have some (say asthma) medication you can share. And when you share, you can bet they will come for more ....with their friends. The moment you do not share ...haha! Then you'll learn a couple of lessons about your 'nice' neighbors. Imagine if your child was crying out of hunger, you have no electricity in your home, the taps just ran out of water ....and next door the house is lit up (they were clever enough to have generators). The light from that house will attract you, and people like you, for miles like ...yup ...zombies. You will politely ask for food, believing (probably correctly) that if that house was smart enough to have bought a genny, they probably have food. Then that person tells you he only has enough for his family. What do you do? Politely say thank you and head back to your crying baby? Maybe on the first day! However, I assure you (ASSURE YOU) that come the second or the third day that answer will not be sufficient.
By the fourth day you will be willing to do anything.
FReepers should read what a starvation diet does to the human brain ...particularly the frontal part of the brain with its 'high' emotions and 'advanced' thought processes. There is a reason starved people who would touch their noses up at rancid butter will eat their shoes (literally eat the leather in their shoes), and in worst cases chop of their toes to eat them, or eat deceased people. In some cases, they resort to cannibalism (read up the story of the real ship that inspired the novel 'Moby Dick' and of the survivors how many were actually rescued, and how those ones survived).
By day 4 you have roaming bands of people desperate for anything ...not big screen tvs, but food. Any home that seems prepared is a target. You will be the enemy.
Oh, but you have the AR, that AK, that Benelli. You are good with the Remington, a master plinker with the 22 (and have the prerequisite FR requirement of 'thousands and thousands of rounds'), you are lethal with that G3 your brother made some illegal conversions. Alright, cool. That is great. Well, so do your neighbors. You are not the only one with arms. Also, even if you arm all the members of your family, you are (say 4 people) against how many people? You better be able to make every shot count, and then better be able to clear your lawn of the bodies (or else you expose yourself and yours to disease and smell). Even without weapons, your neighbors (desperate as they are) will simple storm your home. Again, if it is the 5th day and your child is very hungry and ill, and you think the neighbor has food he is 'not sharing,' you will not care that is has a Mosin in every room and two in the toilets! You will not hesitate to try and get through the front door ...even though you will probably not make it (you are not thinking clearly at that moment, since not only are you hungry as well, you are out of your mind with desperation). The problem for the 'well defended home' is that you are not alone.
Now, I am not saying home defense is a farse. Just that in the cities AND in sub-urbia (sub-urbia is as much a deathzone as the cities), the notion of home defense is a nice illusion.
The only way to make it is to get out of the cities and sub-urbia and head to some rural area, where the communities are more closely knit and cooperative. They have to know you though.
However, urban and sub-urban Rambos will get the nastiest surprise of their life. The only way one can survive in sub-urbia is to have the capability to never miss, have a very good level of situational awareness (Superman's X-ray vision and Spiderman's Spidey-sense are a good start), and have a caffeine drip to ensure the sand-man is always at bay. Then hopefully you have a very good fire suppresion system, because your 'nice' neighbors may try to introduce your home to ol' Monsieur Molotov to try and smoke (or burn) you out. Either way, whole neighborhoods will be on fire (without any real fire departments ....who knows, maybe some of the arsonists will be former firemen. Anyways, even without arson, accidents do happen and firestorms can result). Thus, unless one is Clark Kent, with a dash of Rambo and a slice of Spiderman - one way or the other, you will be over-run if you are in the cities and/or sub-urbia. Guaranteed! It doesn't matter how good one is on the range with the AR-15.
It has to be farm land. A close community that knows each other. Reliance on food has to be totally in the community. Security has to be shared (thus no need for x-ray vision and caffeine drips). The larger numbers means that protection against large groups is more cogent (unlike 'sub-urban Rambo' with more guns than he can shoot ....unless he is like the Hindu god Shiva with his many arms ....and that adage of having Mosins to 'arm the neighbors' simply means you will be arming the people who will take you down, unless you also have more than enough food for your entire street). A rural setting is more defendable, has a close-knit group of people that can share work and security, and is off the beaten path. By the time the sub-urban mobs finally get to the rural areas, you will only have gotten stronger while they will have only gotten weaker. In such a setting the '10 thousand rounds of X caliber' and 'three of each' guns is 100% perfect. The people in the community will also have their own caches, and unless a rebel National Guard/Army outfit with mechanized armor decides to mess with you guys you should not have that much to fear.
But hey ...the other option is to load up to the gills, yet have your 'fortress' being your house smack in the middle of sub-urbia. The number of people who say that makes me believe that there are quite a number of FReepers who have Kryptonian DNA and its associative powers, or maybe were bitten by a radio-active spider. They will need them.
We will eventually return to humankind’s roots: Tribes and clans. Nation-states depend on civilization. As I’m sure you know, many countries are merely confederations of clans and tribes, even to the modern day, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. That way lies safety for many, but stagnation as well.
mark
for later
Work has brought me to a Metro area with a population of ~ 500,000. Even this place has a significant population of inner city folks, and sucklers at the government teat. It will degenerate in a matter of days at the most into a NOLA type scenario. Any place bigger than this is doomed, and I’d imaging quite a few places smaller than this.
I’d be looking for towns of < 10k at least an hour’s drive from any place with a population > 100k and surrounded by arable land.
I’m having this discussion within my family. Oddly enough, the one person that should be most concerned is my son with three young girls. Slowly, the rest have come around, with two exceptions.
My advice to them is simple:
If you think you are prepared, you are not.
If you think you have enough, you don’t.
If you think you have time, it’s too late.
I have no illusions of staying in my suburban home and protecting it. At the first sign of trouble, I’m gone!
The biggest problem that I see is communications, How will like-minded individuals communicate?
Exactly...there is NO escape, and people should get used to it. #3 is most important on your list...
Get escape and survival plan up to date. Obamakazi is nosing over in his final attack.
With the food.
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